Each Parent's Next Step

You’re an Orange leader. You want to combine the church’s influence with the parents’ influence to fuel faith in the next generation. You partner with parents…or at least that’s the goal, right?

If you’re anything like me when I was a children’s ministry director, I thought about this a lot. How do we partner with parents? How do we equip parents to have spiritual conversations at home? If you are not asking this question often, you should be.

What I want to encourage you to think about is that partnering with parents isn’t going to look the same for all parents. If your church is like mine, there are families all over the spiritual spectrum. Some of your parents can name all of the major and minor prophets in order AND in reverse…Malachi, Zechariah, Haggai…

Other parents may need to be shown where their Bible’s table of contents is.

Partner with both and all the ones in between. How? Encourage every parent to take one next step. Suggestions like family devotions, quiet times, scripture memory, or family prayer times may seem unattainable to the mom who doesn’t know the “P” in “Psalms” is silent. She can, however, ask her son at dinner one night during the week, “How could making a habit of serving others change the world?” That’s her next step. It’s doable. No theology education required.

Maybe someone else’s next step is…
-Make going to church every week a priority.
-Pray with your kids at bedtime a couple times a week.
-Open a Bible app on your phone and read the Bible story from the previous Sunday. Talk about how it applies to our lives.
-Watch for moments throughout the week when your kids are showing conviction (or whatever Life App is the focus that month) and commend them for it.
-Set a goal to pray for your kids…every day.

Partner with parents and talk about it. Often. Let them know you are FOR them, to partner WITH them. Meet them where they are and encourage them to take one next step. Everyone’s step may look a little different, but at least they’ll be moving in the right direction.

Courtney Templeton joined the Orange team in the Fall of 2010, and has a renewed passion for helping churches succeed in reaching the next generation. She considers it an honor to help equip church leaders to join families in their community to raise up a generation that is in love with their Creator. Courtney lives in Cumming, GA with her husband, Samuel, and their kids, Nyla, Grey, and Major.